


A Humble Offering

by ThirteenthHour



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Bombur isn't a walking fat joke, Friendship, Gen, Thorin has more baggage than a drag queen on a road trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:57:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirteenthHour/pseuds/ThirteenthHour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bombur is a cook and Thorin a king, but if kindness depended upon rank, the world would be a poor place indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Humble Offering

Bombur worried about his king. Perhaps he, child of a family who'd sworn to no king in centuries, ought sooner to worry over his own sanity, but they'd mined out the Blue Mountains long before the Longbeards had settled Erebor. Only by the fresh influx of ingenuity spearheaded by Thorin and his sister Dis had they eked out more than the barest subsitence. The riches of Erebor, on the other hand, had barely been tapped; Bombur and Elda had five children already, and perhaps a sixth on the way and...well, one could do far worse for kings than this one.

He sat beyond the edge of firelight, again. Staring into the dark, again. Bombur wondered what had triggered it and tried not to wonder why. If the reasons Thorin twitched at things innocuous to other people were anything like Bifur's reasons, he'd sleep better not knowing.

"He gets cold easily, doesn't he?" asked Bilbo, who noticed things. 

"Aye." Bofur, sitting between the hobbit and Bombur, neatly speared a sausage off the spit on which Bombur was roasting them and passed it to the hobbit. "I'll go ahead and guess that hobbits don't."

"Well, no, we're more prone to overheating..."

Bombur waited a moment and then left them to it, slipping between sleeping dwarves with the hot air balloon-like grace peculiar to those both very fat and very strong. Tonight, most everyone lay curled or stretched in sleep, save himself and his brother, on sentry duty, Bilbo on nosiness duty, and Thorin,who did not get cold so easily as Bofur said, shuddering now and then at some chill touch that only he felt.

For that reason, Bombur took no great care to sneak. If he woke Balin, well, then, Balin could damn well go back to sleep. Even so, Thorin startled violently at the arm suddenly wrapped snugly around his chest, and wriggled grimly as the other dwarf sat down and matter-of-factly pulled him onto his lap.

Bombur, who couldn't remember a time he hadn't had cats, held on gently until struggling subsided into a wary, shivering resignation. 

"That's better." At least Thorin lacked claws. He carefully freed one hand in order to slowly stroke the king's heavy dark hair. Thorin relaxed, almost imperceptibly, triggering another shiver, and Bombur smiled to himself - only a little smugly, because he suspected that most of the company had wanted to do that at least once. The fire muttered to itself, the June night thrummed with little lives busy among the underbrush, and Bombur sat like a contented bear and petted the king.

Thorin unwound slowly, in fits and starts, under the ministrations of fat strong hands until, at last, something snapped in him. He half-turned to press desperately close and Bombur, wordless, hugged him tight until he stopped shaking and his breath didn't sound so pained. 

At some point, he realised to his own rueful amusement, he'd started braiding. For a year after the incident, he'd plaited Bifur's hair...perhaps he could put it down to habit. At any rate, serenity stole slowly over him at the peaceful (to someone not a rodent) sounds of night; the fire's warmth; the scents of granite, smoke and pine; the rough silk of Thorin's hair sliding between his fingers.

Perhaps because he himself drifted so near to dozing, he assumed the king had, too. His strangled whisper, "please don't..." gave Bombur a turn. He froze for a long moment before lightly touching the plait framing the right side of Thorin's face.

"Even if I take them out? The new ones?"

Another long pause. Then Thorin shuddered once and shook his head. "...that's all right."

Bombur's shoulders sagged in relief at the release of a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. Slowly he resumed his braiding and, at some point between that and the regretful unweaving, Thorin truly did fall asleep in his lap. Perhaps he wouldn't allow himself the ornamentation befitting one of his deeds and lineage, hope of an exiled people and a legend in his own lifetime, but at least Bombur could offer him a few hours' peace.


End file.
